


Evidence is a Euphemism

by gremlinquisitor (suchanadorer)



Series: CSI: Thedas [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Modern Thedas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 16:06:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16643426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suchanadorer/pseuds/gremlinquisitor
Summary: Cullen comes in covered in... evidence. Someone has to clean him up. That someone might as well be Dorian.





	Evidence is a Euphemism

“I’d hug you right now but you’re covered in evidence. And I also really don’t want to.” Dorian punctuates his statement with the snap of a rubber glove, and Cullen’s brows furrow in response, no more than a twitch in his expression to indicate the way he recoils from the sound.

“Evidence is a really nice euphemism for blood, guts, and gore,” he replies, looking away from Dorian and down at himself. He’d wanted to comment that covered seemed like an exaggeration, but the blood has soaked into his clothes to the point where it is unfortunately appropriate.

“You’re totally missing the point,” Dorian tosses back over his shoulder as he rummages through cabinets, pacing back and forth to collect tools on a metal tray. Each one lands a bit harder than necessary, and Cullen feels every one of them. “Do you know how pissed I am at you right now?”

Dorian’s head snaps up, and finally he looks at Cullen. He’s never seen that expression on Dorian before, and he’s seen all manner of moods cross his face. But this is new, this wideness in his eyes and the set of his mouth. It looks like anger, and it looks like fear, but not only that. Cullen can’t place it, but he knows he’s been looking too long, and so he drops his gaze.

“Should I--?”

“On the paper.” 

He doesn’t have to look to know that Dorian is pointing. Wide strips of white paper have been laid out on the floor, overlapping so that nothing falls between them. Cullen lifts his feet, obediently stepping into the middle of one of them, doing his best not to tear it. The antiseptic smell of the morgue has started to mix with the heavy stink of copper from his clothes, but it offers no relief with its familiarity. He closes his eyes, breathing as deep as he can, trying to calm himself.

He hears the flutter of more paper, the shuffle-scrape of shoes inside what he knows are ridiculous blue plastic covers. Cullen swallows, eyes still squeezed shut, not wanting to face Dorian again. Not yet, anyway.

“Why are you the one doing this?” He asks, cautiously. He is not unhappy that Dorian will be collecting evidence, but if he really is this angry with him, then he can’t understand it. There are others who could do the job.

Dorian clears his throat softly. He’s farther away than Cullen expected. 

“I wanted to. I wanted to be here as soon as you arrived so I could yell at you.” But Dorian isn’t yelling now. There’s still fire in his voice, but he’s holding it back. “We need to start by…” A breath. “I need to photograph you. Head up, eyes open, Commander.”

Cullen blinks, twice, lets the room come back into focus and his eyes seek out Dorian as if by instinct. He’s wearing a gown over his clothes, blue gloves to match the shoe covers, holding an unwieldy digital camera.

“Arms out to the sides, then. Thank you.” The flash hits Cullen full in the face and he sees stars for a moment, almost brings a hand up to his face but for the noise Dorian makes behind the camera. He looks at the ceiling instead, tries to feel less like one of the bodies filed away inside the opposite wall.

“What happened, Cullen?” Dorian steps around him, taking a couple of photos from the side. He crouches to get a better picture of Cullen’s ruined shoes.

“Templars.”

Dorian clicks his tongue, now behind Cullen. “I thought you were going along in an advisory capacity.”

Cullen shifts his weight. His shoulders are starting to burn from holding his arms out, and his face is burning from Dorian’s questioning. “I still carry a weapon, and I still know how to use it. And when you shoot a frozen body at point-blank range, apparently, sometimes…”

“They explode, yes. But that’s not all, is it?”

It’s times like this when Cullen can’t help but think that Dorian’s talent is wasted, spending his time with the dead. He reads more than anyone Cullen’s ever met; he never sees him without a book in his hand or his pocket, tucked under his arm. And his mind is incredible, the way that he can make links, sees patterns, come to conclusions. He should be the detective.

Dorian comes back around to face him, setting aside the camera. The fire is gone from his eyes, but not the fear, and he seems to search Cullen’s face for an answer to his question. Dorian blinks, and it’s gone, replaced with something cooler, more businesslike.

“Did someone collect your firearm?” Cullen nods. “Did you grab or scratch anyone?” Cullen shakes his head. 

“Let’s get you out of those clothes, then.” 

It’s as if he can’t resist the urge to turn it into something wicked when he says it, a different sort of heat in his voice, and Cullen goes warm under his clothes, feels it creep up his neck to his ears. He lowers his arms, bringing his hands up to start unbuttoning his shirt, pausing when Dorian rushes towards him.

“Not you! You can’t just touch things. I need to preserve as much of this as I can. Your body’s not yours right now, it’s mine.” He’s close enough that Cullen can see Dorian blush when he says it, and this time there’s no hint of teasing in his voice. He glances at Cullen, then looks away, swallowing hard. 

He steps away, and Cullen watches him, trying to understand what just happened. Dorian has curled in on himself, shoulders pulled up and eyes cast down, when he returns, a pile of brown paper bags in hand.

He moves behind Cullen again, snapping one of the bags open. Cullen feels hands on his shoulders, the lightest of touches at his collar. “Shrug your jacket off. Try to touch the cuffs as little as possible.”

He does as instructed, glancing back over his shoulder at Dorian, who doesn’t meet his gaze, all his focus instead on Cullen’s shoulders, on the movement of his jacket down his arms. As soon as he’s free, Dorian gathers the jacket in on itself and slips it into the bag, folding the top over to close it. 

“Why does my shirt need to be cut off?” Cullen is a practical man. He knows that the shirt is unsalvageable, but at the same time there is no pattern to determine; the blood has soaked through to the point of saturation, and he’s sure that none of it is his.

“Because we need to examine it,” Dorian replies. “Even if he was a Templar, and even if we know how he died, we still need to do things properly. That’s part of what makes us the good guys. Now hold still.”

Cullen does as requested, feels Dorian tug at the back of his shirt, pulling it out of the waistband of his jeans. The scissors slide up, skimming along his back, leaving him with gooseflesh as Dorian snips through the collar to open the shirt completely from the back. 

“A shame,” Dorian sighs as he continues on, cutting open the sleeves so that the shirt barely hangs on Cullen’s shoulders. “This is a nice shirt.”

“It was a gift from my sister. She has good taste.”

Dorian hums agreement as he steps smoothly around Cullen to collect the shirt. Again, he gathers it in on itself to be put into a new bag, but this time he lingers, folded shirt in his hands, his gaze wandering over Cullen’s shoulders and chest. 

“Something wrong?” Cullen asks, trying to look to see what’s caught Dorian’s attention.

He’s rewarded with a grin, all teeth and charm. “This isn’t at all how I imagined it would be the first time I undressed you, Commander. That’s all.”

Cullen’s throat goes dry at the comment, and it takes him two tries to reply. “You’ve-- I mean.” He chuckles. “I thought you were angry with me.”

“I am.” He disappears behind Cullen again, but this time when there are hands on his back, the touch is somehow both softer and more deliberate. “I’m furious with you, getting yourself into that sort of trouble when I’m not there. Do you have any idea what could have happened?”

The scissors don’t glide through his undershirt the same way, instead chewing through the fabric from the small of his back to between his shoulder blades. Dorian holds the fabric still with one gloved hand, and when both shirt and hand are removed, Cullen feels colder than seems reasonable for the room.

“I needed to protect the Inquisitor. You know that. Without her, we’ll all--”

“What about without you?” The undershirt is dropped unceremoniously into its bag, and Dorian all but glares at Cullen. “Do you really think that the Inquisition doesn’t need you as well? You can’t just go charging off into danger like that.”

Cullen shifts his weight, meeting Dorian’s glare head on with a look of his own. “It is my duty to do whatever is needed for the Inquisition.”

“You can’t very well do anything for the Inquisition if you’re dead, now can you?” There’s something pleading in Dorian’s expression that makes Cullen pause in his argument, startled by the openness of it.

“Dorian, I’m all right.”

“No you’re not. I saw the way you jumped at every noise I made, the way your hands trembled when you pulled them out of your jacket.” He steps in so close that Cullen has to fight the urge to back away, and when Cullen turns his head, Dorian is there, catching his chin, making him look. “Was there lyrium there?”

“Red lyrium,” Cullen replies dumbly. 

“Did you get any on you? In your mouth, your eyes?”

“I-- I don’t know, I don’t think so. I think… I think I’d know if I did.” He pauses, taking a breath, forcing down the nerves that well up inside him, the mixture of fear for himself and something brighter at the idea of Dorian’s concern. “No,” he says, gaze level when he looks at Dorian again. “No, I didn’t get any on me. I’m sure of it.”

He is scrutinized a moment longer, and Cullen is reminded that on top of the many talents Dorian possesses, he is also a skilled mage. It should be easy, he thinks, for him to know as well as Cullen himself if he’s been infected with the lyrium. But after a moment, he relents, apparently taking Cullen at his word.

“All right, then. Well, we’re only halfway. Shoes and socks now. Just let me freshen up.”

Another flash of a grin as Dorian turns away, tugging off the gloves he was using and replacing them with new ones. He drops to his knees, the paper on the floor rustling when he lands. 

He looks up at Cullen, lifting his eyes but not his head. “No comments, Commander.”

“Not a word,” Cullen replies, shaking his head. The thought hadn’t occurred to him that it was anything to comment on until Dorian mentioned it, but now that he’s said it, the suggestion won’t leave, and Cullen has no idea what to do with it. He watches Dorian make swift work of his laces, and lifts his feet, one after the other as requested, gentle touches to his ankles to guide him. He sets his hand on Dorian’s shoulder to steady himself when he steps out of his shoe, feels how Dorian tenses at the touch. He leaves his hand there for a moment longer than he needs to, brushes his fingers on the side of Dorian’s neck when he moves away. He’s not sure what he wants to say, but he thinks he wants to say something.

Dorian stands, moving away to get more bags. Cullen is all too aware of what he’s still wearing, and that that will also need to be removed.

“I don’t suppose you have anything else for me to wear once you’ve collected all of this? Because my--”

“Your gym bag is in my office,” Dorian fills in. “When I heard what happened, I went and got it, just in case. One of the perils of being me is that I’m very often right.”

The corner of Cullen’s mouth pulls up into a smile, and once again he finds himself impressed by Dorian’s intelligence and instincts. 

One more pair of new gloves, and Dorian returns to finish the undressing. Cullen is careful to let his arms hang loosely at his sides, but he watches, trying to discern anything from Dorian’s movement and expression. 

“Well.” Dorian gets at far as setting his hands on the buckle of Cullen’s belt before he pauses. His laugh is nervous, and it tugs at something in Cullen’s chest. “It normally takes dinner and a couple of drinks for me to find myself--”

“Then have dinner with me.” 

Dorian huffs out a laugh, shaking his head as he unbuckles the belt and slips it off, the nerves in Cullen’s skin following the motion, sending hot, impossible sensations back to his brain.  
“You shouldn’t joke,” he mutters as he opens the fly and pushes Cullen’s jeans down past his hips. They fall to the floor in a pile at his feet, and Dorian looks down at them, as if avoiding looking at Cullen.

“I’m not joking, Dorian,” he offers in a whisper that still feels loud in the empty space around them. He steps out of his jeans, paper rustling under his feet. He feels more naked speaking than he does standing there in nothing but his underwear. “Please have dinner with me.”

He’s not sure if he’s allowed to touch, blood still on his hands, but he does anyway, reaching out to brush his thumb over Dorian’s cheek, anything to get him to look up at him. And he does, wide eyes filled with a different sort of fear than he’d had when Cullen came in.

“Cullen, I--”

“Would you like to have dinner with me?” He’s more certain for each time he asks, both that it’s the right choice, and that Dorian will say yes.

Dorian blinks, and the smallest hint of a smile appears. “Do you know, I think I would.” His smile is different from the grins he’s offered earlier. It’s warmer, more real somehow. It would be nice to see it again. 

“But not until after we’re done here, and you’ve showered.” He bends and scoops up the jeans in one smooth motion, depositing them in their bag by his feet. “And all of this has to be catalogued, taken upstairs… You have nothing to wear but gym shorts and a t-shirt…” He sighs, hands on his his hips. “I could order take-out, shared in the romantic privacy of my office. I might even have a bottle of wine stashed somewhere.”

Cullen laughs, and Dorian smiles again, and the air in the room seems less heavy. “I’d like that. Particularly the part about the shower.”

Dorian gestures to a metal stool next to his tray of instruments - combs, tweezers, swabs, papers and envelopes. “Well, first things first, then. Have a seat and we’ll get this over with.”

Cullen does, relieved to be able to get off his feet, but excited at the thought of what was to come.


End file.
